Self-navigation of STM tip toward a micron sized sample

We demonstrate a simple capacitive based method to quickly and efficiently locate micron size conductive samples on insulating substrates in a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). By using edge recognition the method is designed to locate and identify small features when the STM tip is far above the surface allowing for crash-free search and navigation. The method can be implemented in any STM environment even at low temperatures and in strong magnetic field, with minimal or no hardware modifications.